Mancunian performance poet Mike Garry set the scene with his gritty northern poetry.

John Cooper Clarke then appeared before the packed house, a presence to behold with his legendry skinny, black-suited silhouette, dark spiky hair and shades.

‘The Bard of Salford’ who has amassed five decades of performing, was promoting his first anthology of poems Anthologia.

Branded the Punk-Poet, Cooper Clarke certainly hasn’t softened his rapid-fire delivery or his wicked, dry wit.

Hilarious anecdotes, about everything from his divorce from first wife- “we split the house, I got the outside,” to shaking hands with the Dalai Lama - “my right-hand side sobered up,” preceded his fast-paced verse delivery.

The notion of ‘PC gone mad’ led to a verse about a “berserk cop” as Cooper Clarke declared: “The whole world is upside down”.

Typically, he didn’t steer- away from offending with jibes about male gender reassignment – “get used to it, you’re a geezer”.  However, his hard-hitting jests were often self-slating - “I’m not going to tell you how old I am, but I don’t buy green bananas,” he announced before launching in to Bed Blocker Blues.

An encore of I Wanna Be Yours, which has been recorded by the Arctic Monkeys, concluded the engaging night with Cooper Clarke stating: “I’m romantic to a sadistic degree”.